Tag: social network

Social Networks – Links among People

Google is promoting an API that maps connections among people. Great idea. I would guess the idea is to discover others with similar interests “a few links removed”.

The problem is that the API relies on designated “people” connections – friends lists, blog rolls, etc. There are designated tags for such links, but how many people or applications use them (see Jarvis post).

There must be another way to attempt to do this, but the methods I can think of require that the authors” of elements on the web be known. Links among web pages, blog posts, social networking sites, etc. are not just links among information sources, but also links among people. If “author” was a tag, it should be possible to create maps of linkages among authors. This would be a little different than acknowledged people links (XFN, FOAF).

I suppose the idea that taking advantage of linkages among people associated with ideas may seem a little intrusive. However, once one advances past the first level of people links a similar issue arises. My kids and I share each other as “friends”. This means I am one link away from the others on their friends lists. I feel myself growing younger by the moment, but I have no interest in discussing how to get tickets for the next Hannah Montana concert. 

Perhaps author to author links should be weighted 1 and friend to friend links should be designated 2 in creating a network map. Then, you would have the “best of both worlds”.

BTW – if you don’t understand the reference to “best of both worlds”, you need some younger friends. 😉  

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Growing Up Online – Dateline Program

Frontline (PBS) had an hour program entitled “Growing Up Online” that aired this evening. The program explores a wide variety of topics (cheating, social networking dangers, generational differences). You can view the program and related material at the PBS site. These resources would be quite useful in a pre-service teacher ed tech class.

I learned of this program from other blogs and it appeared some felt the program would play up negative issues and this would result in an overly negative public reaction to services that have value. While the focus was probably more on “concerns” than opportunities, in areas in which I have read some of the research (e.g., danger from online predators), I thought the program raised the issues I felt were necessary to present an accurate picture (e.g., level of solicitation from strangers is rare, adolescents are aware of dangers, risky behavior has multiple causes). I did not feel the program focused on fear mongering.

(NYTimes follow-up, Washington Post follow-up)

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Maybe blogs were just the next, not the best thing

We are on the road somewhere in southern North Dakota making the long car trip to Iowa to visit my mom. I have a new tech toy to play with on the trip. The rest of my family are power cell phone users and they purchased a multiple-purpose cell phone for me in the hopes I would participate. After a year on months in which my minutes accumulated to less than an hour, I have been cut off. I now have a simple cell phone (no Internet), but I received a “wifi stick” for my laptop in trade. I prefer email and I have Internet access I can use from nearly anywhere. This was a good investment.I just read Will Richardson’s recent post lamenting the lack of group focus among educational bloggers. It is a valid observation and I would agree. Blogs are such flexible tools and the variety of purposes blogs serve is one source of the difficulty. My analysis of my own behavior is that I use this blog to store bits and pieces of info I pick up (hence the title of this blog). I do this for myself, but share if anyone else is interested. I read a few blogs written by others, but I don’t see myself participating in a group enterprise.Consider how blogs differ from other “tools”. Perhaps there are too many access points. With a wiki or a listserv, everything cycles through a common point even when different topics are addressed. With blogs there is no leader, no one to initiate or integrate for others, and an independence that encourages self absorption. You can use a blog like a listserv, but different tools afford different opportunities. Blogs are personalized publishing tools. Other tools are probably better if a group focus in desired.

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PageFlakes for Educators

I make use of personal web portals and while I was aware of Pageflakes, I have always classified it as another personal portal. By personal portal, I mean a web page hosted on a remote server that users can easily customize with “widgets” (or whatever the host companies calls function specific modules that can be selected and positioned on a page) to serve as their browser home page. The idea is to bring together information sources (RSS feeds for news, weather, blogs, images), email, commonly used links, etc. in one location.

Now, I learn that PageFlakes can be used to create a “page” for sharing and some special flakes have been included in a version for educators/students (Mashable). If you don’t understand what this might mean, recognize that it allows a user (teacher/student) to create a page that can include powerful functions you don’t have to understand how to create yourself. Select a “”flake” from a long list of possibilities, position it on the page where you think it is most appropriate, and edit flake “parameters” to adjust the function of that flake to your own needs.

I have created a sample Page for your exploration (http://teacher.pageflakes.com/markgrabe).

Access control is an important issue when educators involve students with online resources. PageFlake can be private, public, or available to a designated group of participants. I have not included examples of flakes that might be among the more useful for classroom group (e.g., blog, notepad) because I must make my example public for you to be able to access the page. Unless I am missing something, I could not determine how I would turn off “comments” and similar response opportunities under these conditions.

One flake allowing personal content creation even under the public condition is the “anything flake”. This flake amounts to a simple web page authoring tool (see upper left-hand corner of my page). The tool is very easy to use and saves a fully functional html “mini” page that is really part of the full page.

Some have already developed simple tutorials for PageFlakes (e.g., PageFlakes for Education Wiki). The best way to understand this environment is probably to explore (http://teacher.pageflakes.com) as a personal portal and then, if this proves to be a productive experience, progress to the creation of pages for sharing.

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The disintegration of the long tail?

Alex Iskold has added an interesting post to the Read/WriteWeb blog. The comments concern the motivation of bloggers, the concept of the long tail (Chris Anderson), and whether those in the long tail will continue to be motivated to contribute.

The “long tail” is the concept that while a few resources (books, blogs, songs) get a great deal of attention the total attention to the many resources in the long tail (the resources receiving much less attention) will be greater. Companies such as Amazon have thrived on the long tail (your brick and morter bookstore will have the best sellers, but you can find anything at Amazon).

Iskold proposes that the value of the long tail makes sense from the position of those offering access (e.g., Amazon), but perhaps not from the position of those “selling” only a few books or songs. He applies this analysis to the blogosphere and speculates that less frequently visited bloggers will become discouraged. Part of the analysis explains why he feels some bloggers receive so much attention and some of the analysis is devoted to his long term concerns.

The title of his post (No money in the long tail) may reflect a flaw in his analysis. Those with specific foci who receive limited attention are probably not expecting to monetize their blogs. Of course, without these many focused and low volume sites the companies that are supported by blogging (the aggregators, search services, and hosts) would suffer.

The Iskold post offers some interesting comments on blogging and the post links to some additional interesting material on individual motives for blogging. I am thinking this is less of an issue for those who blog on educational topics than for those emphasizing other areas. Some of the most prominent educational bloggers monetize their commitment to blogging by attracting attention resulting in speaking and consultation fees. These individuals are likely to continue their frequent posts and “no payment writing” as long as their services continue to be in demand. Other bloggers might be motivated by an immediate context for their blog (e.g., their class) and be less concerned that a more general audience make use of the resources they provide.

Finally, there are personal professional (or other) motives for blogging. I use this blog partly as a way to keep track of useful ideas and resources I encounter. It does take some additional effort to write a more publicly presentable version of this information, but the total effort expended is not motivated by whether or not anyone else reads the material. Hence, I can tolerate a lower readership because the size of my audience is not the sole reason for taking the time to blog.

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Popularity of Social Networking Sites

Richard McManus, Read/Write blog, offers some recent statistics on the popularity of social networking sites. For example, 17% of the 2.6 million Facebook users are < 18 years old. Let me get my calculator – 442,000 kids are on Facebook alone. MySpace has a substantial lead in attracting the younger set. More than 2 million individuals under 18 have MySpace accounts.

They may not be able to access from their schools, but they are connecting from somewhere.

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Google OpenSocial

This is a little geeky, but the topic has been in the tech news a lot lately. Google is offering a new opportunity to social site developers by making its new OpenSocial APIs available. This link also offers a video that explains more about the new Google resources.

Some see this is as counter move to the growing popularity of existing social environments (Facebook).

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